this week, ge is shuttering this plant in winchester, virginia, its last u.s. factory producing plain-old incandescent light bulbs. new energy standards will all but ban the bulbs over the next four years. forcing millions to switch to compact fluorescents. most of which are made overseas. it seemed that the invepgs thomas edison perfected 130 years ago is flickering and fading. >> this is edison's private experimental room at the laboratory. he was working on ways improving the electrical lamp. >> reporter: he said that the great inventor would be torn about the change. >> on the one hand, he would have been disappointed. on the other hand, edison was always somebody who was looking forward. one thing that he was very interested in, was there more efficient ways to generate electricity? he would have seen that as the future. >> reporter: the incandescent bulb, notorious for getting by on a few hours of sleep, he wanted to transformed the world into a 24-hour culture by lighting up the night. >> the light bulb going off over your head, that's representing ediso